Katherine Heigl Is NOT Difficult, Jerks

Today in celebrity gossip: Katherine Heigl begs to differ with her haters, plus Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe came out of the closet, and a former Baywatch star got beaten up at Paris Hilton's house.

The case studies of very popular celebrities or titles that have quickly plummeted into disgrace are legion. John Mayer. True Blood. Liz Phair. Glee. Aaron Sorkin. Frozen (just you wait). But one of the most extreme and perhaps unfair is the case of Katherine Heigl. Once the impossibly appealing saucer-eyed ingenue from Roswell, Grey's Anatomy, and of course My Father the Hero, Heigl rocketed into the stratosphere with Knocked Up and a couple of interchangeable romantic comedies. But those arrived along with rumors that Heigl had been "difficult" to work with and that her mother/manager had been overbearing, and these rumors were only compounded when Heigl dared to express strong opinions in interviews. Next thing we knew Heigl was borderline box office poison and we as a society had moved on, satisfied that this uppity woman had been rightly relegated to the elephant graveyard of tossed-off "It" girls. But guess what? Exercising an admirable amount of pluck, Heigl has returned from exile with State of Affairs, a new CIA drama unveiled by NBC this past spring as a sort of network television answer to Homeland. And at this week's Television Critics Association panel Heigl faced a gauntlet of entertainment reporters desperate for clickbait. Specifically, she was asked point-blank about whether she agreed she had been difficult to work with. Here's how she responded!

I can only say that I certainly don't see myself as being difficult, I would never intend to be difficult... If I have ever disappointed somebody, it was never intentional.

Just a coolly handled, professional answer to a rude question. Then, when a reporter pointed out that Heigl had clearly withdrawn from the public spotlight Hathaway-style following all that bad press, she countered with this:

I took a couple of years off to be with my family… I needed that time. I needed to be a mom, and be a wife and be a friend and really revel in that.

So there. Did you sufficiently humble this strong-willed woman, everybody? Guys, feel free to debate all day about your feelings about Katherine Heigl's likeability, but can we maybe ask ourselves why women are forced to adhere to much stricter "likeability" tests than men? Could you imagine if a female actor pulled the kinds of unprofessional stunts Joaquin Phoenix did during his I'm Still Here phase? Or why is it that Charlie Sheen still gets tons of work but Brett Butler doesn't? Anyway, sure, maybe Katherine Heigl is a terror on set, maybe only Shonda Rhimes knows for sure. But she's also talented and seems really serious about her work, and it's probably time to relax a little about whatever kind of reputation she does or doesn't have behind the scenes. Thus concludes this week's In Defense of Katherine Heigl Moment. [Us Weekly]

Famous Australian Olympic Swimmer Ian Thorpe is "not straight," according to an interview set to be released this week on Australian TV. This is a marked change for what Thorpe had been defensively claiming ever since his 2000-heyday, and that includes a bestselling memoir in which he flatly denied being anything other than heterosexual. So yeah, file this document in your ever-expanding "No Duh" dossier. Ian Thorpe likes the fellas. Sometimes? All the times? Unclear. [Us Weekly]

Last April we talked about the curious case of Sam & Cat, Nickelodeon's hit sitcom that starred superstar-on-the-rise Ariana Grande and Jennette McCurdy and how it was mysteriously halted amid rumors that Jennette McCurdy had quit the show over being treated as second-tier to her co-star. Well, some of those rumors have been confirmed, in particular the one about Sam & Cat getting cancelled. Because Sam & Cat has been cancelled after one season. Nickelodeon hasn't given much of a reason for this other than its standard "We are very proud of the show and its very talented cast and we wish them the best" announcement, but yesterday Deadline confirmed that the one-and-done aspect of the cancellation had everything to do with "behind-the-scene [sic] drama". Now we know! [Us Weekly]

Well, it finally happened. A former Baywatch castmember was beaten up at Paris Hilton's house. According to TMZ, on early Sunday morning Jeremy "Hobie" Jackson arrived at Paris Hilton's $65K-a-month Malibu rental and "walked in without invitation" whereupon he was "viciously attacked" by a group of men that included the infamous Brandon "Lindsay Lohan is a firecrotch" Davis and it all concluded with Jackson getting a vodka bottle broken over his head. The cops came but nobody was arrested. It was a pretty normal party, actually. It was maybe even a perfect party? [TMZ]

Justin Bieber is still trying to make his Shots app happen, and right now that means shirtless selfies with hashtags like "#prettyboyswag." So uh, yeah. He's going to be a billionaire basically.

Here's a photo from the time Katy Perry hung out with some masked DisneyWorld employees for a few seconds:

Lady Gaga went to the dentist and no amount of oral inconvenience could keep her from Instagramming a selfie.

A very happy birthday to Colton Haynes! Please enjoy those magazines and Birkenstocks responsibly.